Mold
The Mold is a biologically engineered bacterium that appears in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. Created by an enigmatic criminal organisation known as The Connections, this substance is a fungal superorganism possessing highly mutagenic properties and the capacity for controlling the minds of infected hosts. Development The Mold was developed in 2000 by The Connections in a joint project with Albert Wesker's H.C.F. group to develop a new form of B.O.W.. It was a success in terms of a bioweapon, since it could turn enemies into allies, or hostiles into servants, eliminating the costs of sheltering prisoners-of-war and even combat, gathering negative attention from the bioweapons black market. To fabricate the Mold, its genome was introduced to a pre-Stage 4 human embryo under cultivation over a period of 38 to 40 weeks. To ensure blending into crowded populations without effort, these humans were always female and were artificially aged to the appearance of a ten year old. Over several years five lines of human B.O.W.s were created, each better able to control the Mold and blend into human society. Each was given a letter-number designation to determine their position in the line, starting from A-E. The prototype E-Type, "E-001" - otherwise known as Eveline - showed remarkable abilities. Another astonishing feature was that Eveline was capable of a profound imposition over the body and mind of those personally chosen to be living hosts of the Mold. The creators of the bioweapons theorized that the mind control was possible much alike the action of autoinducer pheromones used for quorum sensing in pseudomonas bacteria. In further analysis of Eveline's abilities, immediately after infection, subjects showed to see images of her, even though she was not present, having their will bent from companionship or assistance requests to self-mutilation or hostile behaviour. Infected subjects also stated a schizophrenic state where the person hears Eveline's voice, even though it's inaudible to anyone else. This psychological shock helps to break down the mind's natural barriers and open the way to Eveline's brainwashing abilities. Infection The Mold can be produced within the body of an E-Type bioweapon via the mycelia fungal filaments implanted in the subject's body. The E-Type is capable of producing vast amounts of Mold, even in excess of its own body mass, and will expel it by vomiting. Any physical contact with the substance poses the risk of infection. Upon infection of a subject, the Mold propagates itself by absorbing nutrients from the infectee's body. As it grows, it takes over the body's cells, resulting in the host body gaining remarkable regenerative abilities that allow it to quickly heal lethal wounds and even regrow severed limbs. This is due to the fungus' secretion of a telomerase-like enzyme through the cell walls, which causes the activation of the ERK pathway, and thus, forces cell-division to regenerate damaged tissue until their natural limit. However not every subject possess the same healing capabilities, as Jack Baker is notably more resilient than any of the other subjects. Mentally, the subject still maintains its mental state and has little to no physical changes. Once the Mold reaches the host's brain, a mental connection is established between the host and the E-Type bioweapon that produced the Mold to begin with. This inevitably leads to the infected host behaving in a hostile, psychotic manner as the E-Type asserts its control over the subject. The infected host may experience visual and auditory hallucinations, seeing or hearing the controlling E-Type even when it is not present. Ultimately, the subject loses all sense of self and will only act in accordance to the will of the E-Type. The Mold is also capable of completely overwhelming a victim's entire body structure, resulting in the body being transformed into a creature made entirely of Mold. These creatures, known as Molded, can be created from either living or recently deceased subjects. Treatment The only known cure to the state of infection by the Mold is by a serum produced by a method that uses samples of the E-Type body tissue, producing a unique fungicidal serum, capable of destroying the cells of any subject infected by results of E-Type bioweapon model. However if the subject has reached the final stage of infection, injection of the serum is fatal. The pattern effect of the toxin is to calcify every cell that has been infected with the Mold. As the infected in initial stages do not have a high number of cells corrupted by the Mold, the fungicidal serum is advised to those at this point of contamination, since the calcification will have a small impact on the subject's health. As higher stages include infection in the brain or in every cell of the body, if the serum is injected into an individual afflicted by the Mold at this stage, the result is certain death, by the calcification of every cell. For that reason, the fungicidal serum is primary use of the disposal of initially infected subjects, rather than a cure. Category:Contagions Category:Resident Evil